She completed her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and developed a grammar-based, generate and optimize approach to mechanical design. The dissertation title was "An Implementation Using Grammars of an Abstraction-Based Model of Mechanical Design for Design Optimization and Design Space Characterization." Her B.S. and M.S. degrees were granted by Iowa State University for work in Industrial Engineering with a specialization in queuing theory, the theory of waiting in lines.

Her research interests include computational design, design optimization, and developing formal methods for design. Her educational interests include the development of student project team training materials to build more effective engineering student project teams.